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Edwin Payne had been in Hell for approximately seventy two years, two hundred sixty four days, three hours, and twenty seven minutes.
It was surprising how he’d managed to keep count considering how he was repeatedly ripped apart and devoured by a hellish creature made of dolls every eight minutes and fifty five seconds on average.
However, Edwin had always been a meticulous timekeeper. Even subconsciously it seemed. He always had a ticking clock in his head, despite the fact that parts of his head were splattered on the blood stained walls.
Bones crunched and flesh tore and the hands of a clock inside the head of a corpse counted the minutes until it escaped.
Because after seventy two years, two hundred sixty four days, three hours, and twenty seven minutes, Edwin Payne was free.
He didn’t remember much of how. He just remembered running.
His feet drumming against the blood and shards of glass and stairs. He remembered vomit and bloody hands trying to make him one of their own. He remembered pressing a bell and screams so loud he couldn’t tell if it was them or him. Remembered stolen moments of so called peace where he scratched with shaking hands and blood ink onto a notebook, a guide for if he was ever back there. He remembered his reflection, and not recognizing it.
Who was that boy in the mirror? He had never looked like that. He was sure of it.
He remembered running and panic, sheer panic and more stairs. So many stairs. Just keep running, for if you stop it is more bones and ripping and corpses.
Then he wasn’t stepping on blood. It was grass. Cool and touched with faint dew. It was dark, and the sky was dark too. It stretched, vast above him and Edwin saw for the first time in a very long time that there were stars.
There was a time where he had practiced copying those constellations. Precise labels and steady lines and careful consideration. It was just part of what was necessary. For the required marks of course, but he had found some solace in those particular studies.
He was still running.
No time for stars and notebooks here. Just gasping breaths as every step that should have shocked through him didn’t. It all felt so wrong.
But what was worse loomed over the hill and was stamped across the sky. It was ugly and threatening and it blotted out the stars.
Edwin’s burial ground, St. Hilarion’s Boarding School.
He’d nearly stopped running then.
But he hadn’t.
His should have been exhausted legs carried him from dew to cold stone and he crossed the threshold past the grand door.
He hadn’t stopped even then, surrounded by memories that made him feel as sick as some of the ones he’d left behind. He just went up and up until he reached a ladder. Scrambled up it and closed the hatch. Found himself a corner in some attic and tried not to scream.
When he was safe, when it was quiet, when he had checked over and over and over again for a giggle or sign of blood streaked plastic smiles–he’d thought.
He thought that this felt wrong. Edwin knew Hell had wanted to keep him. It had clutched at him with cold, hard baby fingers, so of course it felt like he hadn’t meant to escape. It was an escape–escape, to break free from confinement and control.
Confinement, Edwin thought wildly, pushing down his mounting fear and tears and nausea. Confinement, something bad–holding him put–held him put–going to hold him–God he wished someone would hold him–it made sense.
He made it make sense that of course it felt wrong to be free. He just had to get used to it. It just felt… like he had gotten out too soon. Gotten off too easily. Easy? And he was crying again. He never used to cry. What had happened to him?
Right, death, the action or fact of dying or being killed; the end of the life of a person or organism.
Even if he hadn’t died when he was taken, he had seen his corpse countless times. No, not countless.
Edwin’s mind, oh so apt at keeping track of time hadn’t failed at the task of counting deaths. He didn’t want to think about it because all that mattered was that he was dead.
He was dead, he was dead, dead, dead, dead–he wanted to throw up but it wouldn’t work because he was dead.
Outside the window was still dark, and inside Edwin was still all alone.